Sen. Gordon "I'm Not Really a Republican" Smith has made another gesture to distance himself from his party, becoming the fourth Republican senator to denounce

Sen. Gordon "I'm Not Really a Republican" Smith has made another gesture to distance himself from his party, becoming the fourth Republican senator to denounce John McCain's scurrilous "robocalls" against Barack Obama.

In a statement to The Huffington Post, Smith spokesperson Lindsay Gilbride said the calls "are not taking place in Oregon and Senator Smith does not condone these sort of calls. Negative robocalls are not appropriate and have no place in campaigns."

The calls attempt to link Obama to Bill Ayers, who was involved in domestic terrorism in the 1960s (when Obama was about 8 years old) and in more recent times has served with Obama on a couple of foundation boards. McCain has defended the robocalls as accurate and legitimate.

"Even as the campaign tactic has courted disdain from fellow Republicans, it's not clear that the robo calls have helped McCain's campaign," blogs Seth Coulter Wells on HuffPo. "A CNN poll released this week showed that most Americans now believe that McCain's attacks against Obama are unfair.

"It's not hard to figure why Smith's camp made the move to officially distance itself from the McCain robocalls: Obama is on pace to handily carry the state on November 4.

"Meanwhile, according to Pollster.com's average of surveys in Oregon, the two-term Smith is running behind his challenger, Democratic State House Speaker Jeff Merkley."

We witness a lot of minor calamities here at the Source. Once a year, we have to call you out about it

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